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When you look at a dog, especially a dog like a Pomeranian or dachshund, it’s hard to imagine that it came from the wolf. How did this transformation take place?
The connection between dogs and humans is highlighted by the scientific name of the domestic dog: Canis familiaris. From tiny Chihuahuas to massive Great Danes, dogs pull sleds, hunt, keep watch, and even retrieve nets!
How did wolves become small dogs?
Dogs might be the most familiar animal to live with humans, but they are not the only ones. Farm animals, like goats, cows, pigs, and chickens, as well as other companion animals, like cats, have been crucial in shaping the path of human evolution. The key to changing animals into our furry friends is a process known as domestication
Domestication is a long process that takes place over generations. It involves human care for a group of animals. Animals typically provide us with food or material for clothing. In return, humans provide food, shelter, and even healthcare!
Every domesticated animal has a wild counterpart from which it came. Cows likely came from the extinct auroch, and chickens probably originated from jungle fowl.
The auroch and red jungle fowl look strikingly similar to our modern cattle and chickens, but a gray wolf and a Chihuahua? Now, that’s a little harder to believe. In addition to providing shelter, humans also pick which individuals to breed together. This is a process known as selective breeding Humans select the traits that are most useful for them. In one generation of domestic animals, they pick the individuals which have the best traits and breed them together.
Imagine you want a fluffy, long-haired dog because you live in a very cold area. You pick the two fluffiest, longest-haired individuals among your dogs and breed them together to make an even fluffier, even longer-haired dog. Scientists are trying to replicate the process performed by humans thousands of years ago by domesticating the silver fox. Each generation, they choose the tamest, most friendly foxes and breed them together.
Large wolves may look majestic, but large animals need lots of food! Humans probably selectively bred small dogs to create certain tiny breeds which do not need so much to eat.
When did dogs evolve from wolves?
When we picture wolves, we often picture the North American gray wolf. There are many species of wolves around the world. Strictly speaking, dogs did not evolve from the gray wolf. The gray wolf and the domestic dog likely shared a common ancestor, known as the Pleistocene wolf.
The Pleistocene lasted from about 2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago. The Pleistocene wolf went extinct around 7,500 years ago.
We began domesticating a group of Pleistocene wolves around 25,000 years ago, making them the oldest domesticated animal! To date, the dog is the only successfully domesticated large carnivore. To put that in perspective, dogs are older than the first successful agricultural civilization. Archaeologists believe that the first wolves to be domesticated were from Asia. In contrast, some even believe that wolves were domesticated twice—once in Asia, and once in Europe.
Archaeologists use various different methods to understand the relationship between humans and dogs. Almost all of these rely on fossil evidence and remains. Fossils of ancient Pleistocene wolves over time show a change in bone structure that comes to resemble modern dogs. We can also tell the relationship between humans and ancient animals based on the condition of the bones. For example, mammoth bones show marks that indicate hunting and human consumption.
In the Mediterranean, archaeologists found remains of dog bones which were broken and then healed. In the wild, a broken bone certainly means death for a carnivore. If a broken bone was healed, it means humans cared for the dog and nursed them back to health. They weren’t left to die, indicating a relationship that was more than just helping each other out.
A new discovery of an 8,000-year-old cave carving in Saudi Arabia showed humans and dogs hunting together. Some dogs were even on leashes!
How were wolves domesticated?
Even before the Bronze and Iron Ages, agriculture and languages, humans had the companionship of wolves. However, how did humans first find wolves to be furry friends? Contrary to popular belief, humans weren’t very keen on getting a wolf buddy, and wanted to eradicate them. Instead, wolves came to humans. Wolves were successful hunters, but so were humans. However, wolves recognized humans to be a good source of food. No, they weren’t munching on human bones. Instead, wolves enjoyed scraps of food left around the camps.
Eventually, the friendlier wolves got shelter and food as they paired up with humans to hunt. The aggressive wolves were shooed off or killed.
As they grew closer to humans, the wolves’ faces became rounder, and their tails curled up. The fearsome canids became fluffy pooches over thousands of years due to genetic changes.
What was the first dog?
The oldest remains that almost all archaeologists agree was a “true dog” was the Born-Oberkassel dog. It was found in Germany, buried alongside two humans.
Archaeologists are still struggling to figure out exactly when and where the first dogs originated, and what they looked like. Genetic evidence suggests that they originated 25,000 years ago around Eurasia, migrating through Siberia, Europe, and even Japan. Cave paintings around 6,000 years ago appear similar to the present-day basenji, and this similarity is supported by genetic evidence. This breed has changed little over the last 6,000 years and was definitely present during the agricultural revolution. Dogs belonging to the first human farmers probably looked like the basenji!
Did we breed wolves into dogs?
Yes and no! Dogs descended from a form of a wolf that existed during the Pleistocene but are quite different from the gray wolf that we find in North America today.
Glossary
Domestication: The process of causing morphological and behavioral differences and a separation from the wild version of that species
Pleistocene: A period in history between 2.6 million years ago and 11,700 years ago
Selective breeding: A choice made by humans to select favorable traits
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 8.2
Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease: 56.1
Explore More!
Domesticate virtual pigeons yourself: https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/pigeons/pigeonetics/
The radioactive dating game: https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/radioactive-dating-game
References
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1471-2148-8-174
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-018-0090-x
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116352/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7753132/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25679746
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278416517301174?via%3Dihub
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-018-0090-x
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